PlayStation Move sharp shooter Origins – Part Two

In part one of our look at the origins of the PlayStation Move sharp shooter, we saw how the peripheral began life as a side project at Guerrilla. In the second part, we learn how the Guerrilla team received valuable help from their friends at Zipper Interactive.

Guerrilla’s proposal for a Move-based peripheral was sent to SCE Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida and the Sony Product Design group, who circulated it among other studios for input. The proposal met with very enthusiastic reactions. “When we saw the foam-board-and-duct-tape mockup, we were like ‘Cool, let’s make that!’” Sony Product Design Manager Ennin Huang recalls.

It wasn’t long before Guerrilla was contacted by developers from other shooters like SOCOM 4, Time Crisis: Razing Storm and Dead Space: Extraction. Zipper Interactive Game Director Seth Luisi, who’d already been looking into a PlayStation Move-based control scheme for SOCOM 4, took a particular interest in the project. “Seth strongly felt that a gun peripheral could bring an additional level of immersion and realism to the table,” Guerrilla Game Director Mathijs de Jonge says. “Like Killzone 3, SOCOM 4 was still in its early stages, so the timing made sense for him as well.”

With each iteration, the design evolved away from the StA-11.

The Zipper team suggested several highly useful additions to the gun peripheral design. “For instance, they wanted players to be able to reload without taking their hands off the navigation controller,” Mathijs explains. “This could be solved by adding pump-action mechanism to the fore grip. Also, they noted that many tactical shooters, including SOCOM 4, featured weapons with multiple modes of fire, which would require the inclusion of a fire selector switch.”

With basic shape and functionality hammered out, the gun peripheral entered the prototyping phase. “Every six weeks, a new plastic gun peripheral would arrive from China for us and the team at Zipper to comment on,” Guerrilla Lead Concept Designer (and resident weapons expert) Roy Postma says. “And with each iteration, you could see the design come into its own more. The style of the weapon became more neutral, less Killzone-specific.”

Enhancements included a more ergonomic angle for the fore grip, an adjustable and collapsible stock instead of the foldable one, and overall weight reductions to facilitate prolonged play. “Sadly, some features fell by the wayside during this process,” Roy says. “We originally wanted to have an ammo counter display above the stock, but it just proved too costly.”

The color of the weapon changed too, evolving from the gunmetal grays of the original design, to a jet black version, to the more neutral grays of the final product. “From a legal and marketing perspective we had to impose some constraints,” Ennin says. “The black version looked menacing, but would have violated most countries’ gun laws.” Even the first grey prototypes proved difficult to get through customs, as Mathijs found after a demonstration at a conference.

Meanwhile, the teams at Guerrilla and Zipper experimented with Move control systems for their respective games, figuring out sensible settings for dead zone, aim assistance and controller sensitivity. “Initially we wanted to map a lot of in-game actions to player gestures as well,” Mathijs says, “but that turned out to interfere with player aim too much. So we restricted it to short, simple movements like thrusting the gun peripheral to perform a melee.”

The final production prototype in all its glory.

The gun peripheral went into full production in the run-up to Killzone 3’s launch. Early hands-on reports of the device – now dubbed the PlayStation Move sharp shooter – were almost unanimously positive, with many reporters expressing pleasant surprise at how solid and natural the peripheral felt during play.

“In terms of control methods, nothing feels more natural than the sheer simplicity of ‘Point, Aim, Shoot’”, Ennin says. Mathijs concurs: “The peripheral made Killzone 3 immediately accessible to people who had never played a Killzone title before. Some reporters even stated that they preferred to play Killzone 3 with the sharp shooter instead of the DualShock 3, because they felt more immersed. That was a huge compliment for us.”
But it wasn’t until the week before Killzone 3’s release that Mathijs realized his other goal for the sharp shooter had also been achieved. “I was watching the PlayStation commercial for Killzone 3 and the sharp shooter and I suddenly realized, you know what – Kevin Butler looks absolutely badass holding that thing! That’s when I knew we’d fully achieved what we set out to do.”

Just wanted to let you know that I had been considering buying a Playstation Move Sharp Shooter for a while but reading the first article on it’s design process convinced me to take the plunge a couple of days ago!

I am highly impressed by the level of thought that went into it’s design, and now I finally have one I can say it shows. I’m not usually much of a FPS fan but I found it very enjoyable to use with the Killzone 3 demo. It makes it much more accessible, and it adds a definite “bad-ass” feeling to the experience!

Ok it becomes pointless to raise the argument that we don’t pay anything for PSN. It has always been free, so stop plugging it like that has anything to do with it. XBOXERS like to pay to play online, PS3ers don’t its just that way. That has nothing to do with SONY not giving any updates, I mean people don’t pay for Facebook and we still get told when we have messages or friend reqquests. I’m sure if that was the only issue with bringing the PS store back Sony would have jumped to post a message that they would begin charging people to play online. And besides I am a paying PS PLUS subscriber so I believe that gives me the right to post or complain or even balderdash on here if I want. We just want some answers. I truly believe if Sony posted on here right now that the store would be up four weeks from now guaranteed, people would be fine with it as long as we were updated regularly

That’s really cool! It would make it a whole lot more simple when switching between Move-Compatible FPS Games. I enjoyed reading both parts of this and imagining myself holding the controller figuring out the button scheme. Thanks for this story.

@23 All the so called FREE PSN Service we don’t need to complain about we are already getting NOW! Who ever heard of paying to use an ONLINE store. On your other comment, Yeah Why SONY don’t I have the STORE yet?

To be honest, I don’t see why Sony doesn’t put up a new blog every day, even if it said –
[THIS IS JUST A CONSUMER SUGGESTION NOT SONY] ‘Hey customers! We know you’re really interested in our services, and we know you really want to fully use the content which we’re so glad you purchased or are wanting to purchase through our company, but since yesterday the goals of our staff have not changed, but the progress they made was *some plainly worded facts*. To reiterate what we’re doing with the store, it’s – *whatever they might be doing*, and currently we have an estimated re-launch of the service *insert date here*. We cannot verify that this date is solid, this is simply a working date to help give our team a better sense of how to structure their efforts. We appreciate your comments and feedback, and your enjoyment of the investment you’ve made in our products and services is our number one priority. Talk to you again tomorrow!’ [END SUGGESTION].
Customers are curious – they want to use the store and they want to get their entertainment via Sony, which means more profit for Sony. Just let us know something every day with a new blog Mr. Jeff, and the rest of Sony PR – Thanks! =)

@zekececil14
When someone says they want something they paid for. They may be talking about dlc cards they bought at a store like walmart. Or DC unvierse online which requires the Playstation Store to activate your DC unvierse online code to start playing. There are people who have had that game for two months and still can’t play it.
Also you need to stop with all the negative comments because all you are doing is being rude and a jerk. No one appreciates it.

@32
You do sound like a child. Children are impatient and they complain when the don’t get what they want.

You paid for Plus for a month/year. You will still get that. They haven’t taken any time off your subscription. They added some. They are picking up right where they left off. YOUR NOT MISSING ANYTHING!

hell yeah we want to know when the store be up the majority of ppl want to know im not crying about it the game thier giving are garbage anyway but post lame A@# story instead of what ppl want to really know things like this keep happening throwing away my ps3 and buying me a payphone to playwith least i know ill get my moneys worth

LOL, I”m just going to give them my suggestion every time I see a blog post – it’s a good break from doing report and presentation planning all day! If they just thought about the crisis through the eyes of a customer, I think they’d be able to make the sort of PR that would satisfy more customers than not. Clearly, every blog post is like, 50% arguing and pleading for an update to the store, so why not update, even if it ends up saying nothing more than thanks for the business and the continued interest? Wouldn’t take much time…

You are hard at work today. That is good. When will we be able to use the PSN store. Many games functionality is weird without it. What are we expected to do in the Next Generation if everything is supposed to be connected to the internet to work? Please fix the store soon.

@40
You buy something online you have to wait for shipping and handling.

How are my comments any more rude then someone comming onto someone’s blog post and saying “We don’t care about this stuff! We only care about the Store!”

This guy is the Editor, Killzone Community. Do you think he appreciates people telling him they don’t care.

While your are waiting to “get what you paid for” I have nothhing I paid for. Hundreds of dollars worth. My HDD was formatted, so nothing. Then, Sony is losing millions. All the devs who have their games on the store are losing money too!

I’m sure you year or month subscription of Plus, or DLC cards, or MK online pass (which they made free for now because no one could download the pass) OR your DC subscription(which is being accommodated for) outweighs what other people are losing.